Persona 5

Jung-at-heart JRPG series unmasks its true power on PS4

Eyeballing the latest entry in the Shin Megami Tensei series, you’ll believe a graphic novel can come to life. Pause for breath? Impossible. Hit Options, and the protagonist whirls round, menu in tow, slamming his hand into your screen. Crimson swathes, stark monochrome details – it’s an ever unfolding pop-up book from the sexiest circle of hell, like a mangaka’s dipped his magnum opus in acid jazz and battered you across the face with it. (And… yep, it turns out that’s your, er, thing.)

Persona 5 is holding nothing back. After its essential PS Vita predecessor, it can’t afford to. Persona 4 Golden was many players’ first taste of the series, drawing them into a double life: by day, studying at school, joining clubs and making friends to level up; by night, entering the shadow realm to fight Jungian nightmare manifestations of characters’ real-world problems using ‘Persona’ powers. Relationships built up through charming daily interactions directly affect the moreish dungeon-crawling and deep turn-based combat, and vice versa.